Warner Bros. confirmed at CinemaCon 2026 that Jamie Dornan will play Aragorn — known only as Strider at this time — in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, directed by Andy Serkis and slated for December 17, 2027.

Jamie Dornan

Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room: recasting Aragorn is kind of crazy. Viggo Mortensen’s portrayal is iconic, career-defining, and deeply imprinted on a generation of fans. If you love the films, your anxiety is real — and probably warranted.

The Hunt for Gollum is set in the late Third Age, when Aragorn is in his sixties or seventies by calendar years — and the Dúnedain, with their Númenórean blood, age glacially so to speak. He would appear as a man in his late thirties or early forties. Mortensen was 42 when Fellowship released. Dornan is 42 now. The age between the two actors tracks.

Hopefully Dornan has the range to portray Strider. The Fall showcased his brooding intensity. Belfast revealed some warmth and groundedness. That kind of scope is essential for Strider: he’s hunted and hunting, deadly and weary, capable of violence and moves of tenderness.

The film also brings back Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Andy Serkis as Gollum, with Peter Jackson producing and Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens co-writing the screenplay.

Lee Pace is officially back in Middle-earth. Warner Bros. confirmed at CinemaCon 2026 that the actor will reprise his role as Thranduil, King of the Woodland Realm, in The Hunt for Gollum. The film, directed by Andy Serkis and slated for December 17, 2027, marks one of the first confirmed returning cast members from Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy.

Lee Pace as Thranduil in The Hobbit

For those wondering where Thranduil fits into this story: he’s not a creative addition (as some of the other characters are in this film). Tolkien actually wrote this. In Appendix B of The Return of the King, we learn that after Aragorn captured Gollum in the Dead Marshes, Gandalf had him taken to Mirkwood and placed in Thranduil’s custody. Gollum later escaped — or was allowed to escape — during an Orc attack.

Pace’s Thranduil in Jackson’s Hobbit films was memorably cold, imperious, and morally ambiguous — which is honestly a far cry from the proud-but-not-villainous king Tolkien described. This film presents an opportunity to course-correct. Whether screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens lean into the tension of Thranduil’s carelessness (or complicity) in Gollum’s escape remains to be seen.

Also confirmed: Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Elijah Wood as Frodo, and Jamie Dornan as a younger Aragorn (here called Strider). Peter Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens return as producers.

We’ll see if the Elvenking proves more reliable the second time around.

This episode tackles two more changes from Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring—Saruman orchestrating the storm on Caradhras, and the missing warg attack in Hollin. We break down how these adaptations simplify Middle-earth, debate whether Saruman’s powers go too far, and discuss what’s lost when the mountain itself isn’t an antagonist.

We also examine:

• Why Jackson condensed multiple threats into “just Saruman and Sauron”
• The cinematic potential of Gandalf’s fiery defense against spirit wargs
• Aragorn’s warnings vs. Saruman’s prophecies—and who really drove the Fellowship’s next moves
• What removing the Hollin warg attack means for Sauron’s reach in the story

In our extended episode (members at https://theonering.com/members), we dive into:

• News about Tolkien’s rare books and LOTRO’s new expansions
• Listener comments over Boromir’s character moments on the slopes of the Misty Mountains
• The fated 5 seasons of The Rings of Power
• What’s next for the podcast (Children of Húrin, Kullervo, and maybe Lord of the Rings itself)!

🎉 Get the extended episode by becoming a member at https://theonering.com/members ($4/mo, free for the 1st month) or at Patreon (https://theonering.com/patreon).

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🔍 If You Like Tolkien
The Expanded Letters of JRR Tolkien (audiobook)
The Expanded Letters of JRR Tolkien (book)
The Silmarillion
The Fall of Gondolin
The Children of Hurin
The Atlas of Middle-earth
Make Tolkien Great Again – Tengwar Hat

One of only 15 surviving copies of J.R.R. Tolkien’s rarest book has surfaced for sale—and if you have £65,000 lying around, it could be yours!

Antiquarian bookseller Tom W. Ayling is offering Songs for the Philologists, a slim booklet of poems and songs by Tolkien and his friend E.V. Gordon, privately printed in 1936 by students at University College London. This is the first copy to come to market since 2014.

The book’s scarcity is legendary. Most copies were destroyed in a WWII fire after a tutor realized he hadn’t asked Tolkien or Gordon for permission to reproduce their work. The booklets were never distributed. Of the handful that survived, twelve are locked away in institutional collections like the Bodleian Library and the British Library.

The book itself is a window into Tolkien’s linguistic obsessions. Among its 30 songs, 13 are by Tolkien—early versions of poems that would later evolve into works like “The Stone Troll” in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. There’s “Bagmē Blōma,” a Gothic-language tribute to trees, and Old English drinking songs set to nursery rhyme tunes. These weren’t scholarly exercises; they were the Viking Club at Leeds University’s idea of a good pub evening.

The copy being sold comes from the collection of Professor Arthur Brown, a Tolkien associate. It’s noted to be in a previously unrecorded state, with a printing error in the page imposition—making it even rarer, if that’s possible.

For context, first editions of The Hobbit sell for tens of thousands. Songs for the Philologists is rarer still. If you’re a Tolkien collector with deep pockets and a taste for the truly unobtainable, it’s time to make a hard decision…

The rest of us will have to settle for archival reprints and the knowledge that somewhere, this slender artifact of Tolkien’s linguistic life still exists.

Standing Stone Games has unveiled an ambitious Q2/Q3 roadmap for The Lord of the Rings Online, and it’s a love letter to both longtime players and the broader Tolkien universe. Update 48: “A Glorious Hunt” arrives this month, introducing the Hatokali Fells zone and housing in Rivendell. Q3’s “In Good Company” brings the Angmar Sorceress, LOTRO’s first new class in years.

The timing of “A Glorious Hunt” is no accident. With Peter Jackson’s The Hunt for Gollum set for 2027, Standing Stone Games is weaving that narrative thread into Middle-earth’s longest-running MMO..

The Rivendell housing announcement deserves special attention. It’s one of Middle-earth’s most iconic locations, and giving players the chance to claim a corner of that storied valley is significant. According to MassivelyOP’s coverage, the housing will be accessible to all players, not locked behind VIP gates.

The Hatokali Fells, an arid frontier zone, ships with over 75 new quests, deeds, and missions as part of the VIP content pack. A new six-player instance follows in early summer, alongside 19th Anniversary Festival upgrades and Delving reward improvements.

Q3’s “In Good Company” shifts focus to Player-vs-Monster Player (PvMP) content, reintroducing the Delving of Fror public dungeon and debuting the Angmar Sorceress class.

Standing Stone Games has also teased a major expansion later in 2026, with details promised in June. For a game approaching two decades, LOTRO surprisingly shows no signs of slowing down.  And for fans who’ve walked these online roads since 2007, that seems worth celebrating.

The BBC’s acclaimed radio drama adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Tales from the Perilous Realm is now freely available on YouTube, in full-cast dramatic form.

The collection brings together four of Tolkien’s shorter narratives: Leaf by Niggle, Smith of Wootton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Adapted by Brian Sibley — who also adapted Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for BBC Radio — these productions originally aired in the 1990s and featured performances by Michael Hordern, Alfred Molina, and Brian Blessed.

For readers who know Tolkien primarily through Middle-earth, these stories are a neat window into his other writings and offer a more intimate look into his more personal thoughts.

Leaf by Niggle, widely regarded as Tolkien’s most autobiographical work, is an allegorical meditation on artistic creation and mortality. The story of a painter whose grand vision remains forever incomplete resonated deeply with Tolkien as he struggled with his own unfinished magnum opus. Smith of Wootton Major, written late in his life, explores the nature of Faery and the passing of wonder from the world.

Unlike the epic scale of The Lord of the Rings, these tales are quiet, reflective, and deeply personal. They reveal the man behind the mythology.

The BBC adaptations preserve that intimacy while bringing theatrical life to Tolkien’s prose. For LOTR fans who’ve never ventured beyond the Shire and Mordor, this is an accessible entry point into the broader Tolkien canon.

JRR Tolkien smoking his pipe

The entire collection is now streaming for free on the BBC’s YouTube channel.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is going to get its five seasons. Not because it has earned them, but because Amazon is contractually obligated to produce them, and the cost of walking away is too high.

A report from Lesley Goldberg in The Ankler confirms that the show remains on track for its full run. The reason is blunt: when Amazon paid $250 million in 2018 for the rights, they signed a five-season commitment. Backing out carries a reported penalty of $20 million per season — money that would go directly to the Tolkien estate.

Jeff Bezos has also reportedly placed the show under personal protection. “That’s still under Bezos’ magical halo,” a source told The Ankler. “That’s protected for its run.” Amazon TV boss Peter Friedlander has reportedly visited the set and assured the creative team they’ll get to finish their story — though the report notes the possibility of wrapping in four seasons rather than five.

Galadriel watching Halbrand and Celebrimbor at the forge of Eregion in The Rings Of Power

The financial picture is sobering. Season 1 alone cost over $465 million to produce — not including the rights purchase or marketing. By The Ankler’s reckoning, the show has already become TV’s first $1 billion series. Seasons 2 and 3 reportedly came in cheaper, but the show still dwarfs everything else Amazon makes. Reacher and Fallout, both larger hits by viewership, cost a fraction of what Middle-earth demands.

The Ankler’s sources have not been kind: some have suggested Amazon should cut its losses and cancel. The kill fee makes that impossible without writing a very large cheque to the estate.

What this means practically: The Rings of Power will run to completion regardless of ratings. Season 3 is still awaiting a release date but is expected later in 2026. Plans for any spinoff appear to be dead. The show will tell its story — whether audiences follow it there or not is a separate question.

There is a lore observation worth making here. Tolkien’s Second Age spans thousands of years. The show has already compressed centuries into two seasons. If the full arc runs to Season 5 and covers the Downfall of Númenor and the War of the Last Alliance, the writers will have done something remarkable with very tight screen time. That remains a story worth watching — even if the business around it is a cautionary tale about what happens when Hollywood overpays for beloved IP and then has to live with the consequences.

The recast of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is now official — confirmed by director Andy Serkis.

Speaking to Screen Rant in an interview for his upcoming Animal Farm, Serkis addressed the speculation directly: “I don’t know what’s out there at the moment, but I know there’s a lot of speculation, but let’s just say we are recasting the role and we are on the way to finding someone.”

Andy Serkis in New Zealand Assessing the Hobbiton Set

Viggo Mortensen has been clear that he isn’t returning — the film is set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, requiring an Aragorn in his early 30s, and Mortensen declined to be involved. Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) has been rumoured as the frontrunner, though nothing has been confirmed.

Serkis also offered the most candid description yet of what the film is actually trying to be: “It’s been a tightrope for all. The entire Lord of the Rings team who worked on the originals are reassembled, for a start. So it is grounded in the lore and the world and the vision of Peter Jackson’s trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy. So it will feel like a proper Middle-earth film, there’s no question, but there is a much more internal psychological investigation into one of Tolkien’s most complex characters, i.e. Gollum. So it’s a very interesting mix, and I think it is a tightrope for sure.”

On Kate Winslet, who has been confirmed in an undisclosed role, Serkis gave nothing away: “We’ve got to keep it all back.”

The Aragorn recast remains the central question hanging over the film. Mortensen didn’t just play the role — he defined it for a generation. The quote above is at least encouraging: the original creative team is back, the lore is being respected, and Serkis clearly understands the weight of what he’s carrying. Whether a new actor can carry it too is something we won’t know until December 17, 2027.

The studio behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance may be working on a Lord of the Rings RPG — and if the rumor is accurate, it could be the most ambitious Tolkien game ever made.

The claim comes from Ryszard Chojnowski, a Polish industry veteran with 27 years of experience including work as a project lead on The Witcher, speaking on the Tolkien Polska Podcast. Chojnowski said he heard from credible sources that Warhorse Studios — the Czech developer owned by Embracer Group — is the studio behind a previously reported Lord of the Rings project. He was skeptical when he first heard it, but says more whispers have surfaced since.

The project itself was first reported by Insider Gaming in late 2025: a third-person open-world action RPG set in Middle-earth, with roughly $100 million in funding from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, designed to compete with Hogwarts Legacy. Embracer Group holds the rights to Middle-earth games, which makes Warhorse — one of their studios — a plausible fit.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2

There are corroborating signals. Job postings at Warhorse have sought developers with Unreal Engine experience, which is notable because the Kingdom Come series runs on CryEngine. Switching engines for a new IP rather than their established franchise makes sense — and points to a separate, dedicated project.

None of this is confirmed. Warhorse has officially announced they are developing a new self-funded, open-world AAA RPG, but have said nothing about what it is. This could be that game. It could also not be.

There has never been a true open-world single-player RPG set in Tolkien’s world. Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War were action-adventure games built around a non-canonical narrative. LOTRO is an MMO. The big, serious, single-player exploration of Middle-earth has never been made. If Warhorse — who built one of the most praised open-world RPGs of recent years — is actually working on this, that makes this interesting.

It’s years away at minimum, if it exists at all. But it’s worth watching.

In this episode, we examine the insertion of Boromir’s ring-handling scene on the slopes of the Misty Mountains–though it was completely invented, how close was it REALLY to the books? … and THEN we discuss Peter Jackson’s NEXT Lord of the Rings films, this time written by Stephen Colbert! 😬

We look at:

• Boromir’s believable corruption
• How much of this scene was actually pulled straight from the book?
• Will this be a movie we want, or just another exercise in fan-service?
• Will the film really just be a flashback?

Become a member at https://theonering.com/members or https://theonering.com/patreon to hear our thoughts on:

• Is the word “simple” the most important part of Boromir’s statement?
• And how necessary were Merry and Pippin at the council?
• How much of Colbert’s ideology will be in the new film?
• Other opportunities for films around the time of The War of the Ring

BECOME A MEMBER!
Get access to the extended edition of this podcast, our private Discord chat, and live chats. You can also join for $5 a month on Patreon

🔗 Episode Links
Join our Discord Community (for free)
Get the Extended Podcast
Become a Patreon Member

🎧 Subscribe to our Podcast
Get the Extended Podcast
Become a Patreon Member
Subscribe on Apple
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🔍 If You Like Tolkien
The Expanded Letters of JRR Tolkien (audiobook)
The Expanded Letters of JRR Tolkien (book)
The Silmarillion
The Fall of Gondolin
The Children of Hurin
The Atlas of Middle-earth
Make Tolkien Great Again – Tengwar Hat